A lawyer for police unions filed a court motion to block release of the records just as the officers’ department was poised to make the documents public under a new state transparency law, created when Gov. Jerry Brown signed SB 1421 last year. The law went into effect Jan. 1.

The lawyer, Michael Rains, told the judge he intends to file additional requests Friday for temporary restraining orders to block disclosure of records in Concord, Richmond, Antioch, El Cerrito, Martinez and the Contra Costa Sheriff’s office. The new law requires the public release of records showing when officers are found to have committed sexual misconduct on duty, or made false statements. It also requires the release of all investigations of officer-involved shootings and other uses of force resulting in serious injury, whether or not officers were found to have violated department policies.

Judge Charles Treat said he was sympathetic to disclosure of the records, saying that the public has an interest in how officers behave and how they are held accountable when they don’t behave properly. If an officer “shot (someone) in cold blood, I have a real hard time seeing a privacy right” to keep investigative and disciplinary documents secret, he said.

But Treat granted the temporary restraining order against Walnut Creek, noting that making the records public can’t be undone and the officers deserve the opportunity to make a formal argument that the records should remain a secret. The judge scheduled a full hearing for Feb. 9.

In a Jan. 10 letter to this news organization, Walnut Creek Police Chief Tom Chaplin wrote that the department was searching files for records showing that officers were disciplined for sexual misconduct on duty and making false statements. He wrote the records would be released Jan. 24, adding that the department had no records involving use of force investigations.

The local officers’ union request to block that release mirrored similar efforts in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Ventura counties earlier this month where judges delayed disclosure.

The unions there argue that records showing officers’ past sins can’t be released under the new law because it is not retroactive. This news organization, in partnership with KQED News, and others across the state have requested disciplinary records from hundreds of agencies going back five years and sometimes longer.

Not all agencies are delaying release or seeing law enforcement unions trying to block disclosure. Earlier this month Burlingame disclosed it had fired a veteran cop after finding that he arrested a woman on suspicion of DUI and then told her he’d help her with the case if she had sex with him.

The next day, San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said he would consider reopening a criminal inquiry into the officer’s conduct after learning disciplinary records showed two other women came forward after he was fired alleging similar conduct. Wagstaffe said he was unaware of the additional claims until they were reported in this newspaper, saying the claims could indicate a pattern of criminal behavior.

In Santa Cruz County, Watsonville released records showing it fired two officers who were found to have had sex repeatedly on duty — including in the front seat of a police car — with unidentified partners.

Treat told Rains that argument is “a little mushy,” noting the new law, sponsored by Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, says nothing about limiting disclosure from past years. Rains countered that lawmakers could have clearly written the law to cover previous years but did not, meaning it applies only to records records covering events after Jan. 1. Skinner has repeatedly said the intent of the law is that it applies to past years.

The head of an open government group said the unions’ arguments “rest on a very thin reed and are ultimately doomed to fail.”

The “frenetic efforts to stop SB 1421 are truly unfortunate,” David Snyder, executive director of he Marin-County based First Amendment Coalition wrote in an email Thursday.

They may succeed in delaying the public access to records of police misconduct., Snyder wrote. But “when the legislature passed, and the governor signed, this bill, it was abundantly clear that the intent was to open up all police misconduct records, not just records of future misconduct.

The top editor of this news organization said the police unions are only hurting their members by fighting against the release of records that show how departments deal with problem cops.

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“The police unions fought last year in the legislature to keep these records under wraps, and they’re continuing to fight even though the legislative battle went against them,” said Bert Robinson, Managing Editor/Content for The Mercury News and East Bay Times.

“We will stand with the lawmakers who in their wisdom opened up these records to the citizens of California. Transparency, not secrecy, is the way to ensure public respect for law enforcement.” he said. “I hope someday the police unions will understand they’re undermining the profession they claim to defend.”

Thomas Peele is a Pulitzer Prize winning investigative reporter on the Bay Area News Group's regional team. He has worked at newspapers, including Newsday, for 34 years in California and elsewhere. Peele focuses on government accountability, public records and data, often speaking about transparency laws publicly.